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Ken Currie
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Ken Currie
Ken Currie (born March 9, 1960, in North Shields, North Tyneside, England) is a Scottish artist known for figurative painting and portraits. In his early career in the 1980s, he was associated with the New Glasgow Boys group of artists. Currie was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy in 2024.
His work often deals with themes of class, illness, and decay. Currie says he wants his work to "hover in that area between beauty and horror". His work is in many major collections including the Tate, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Yale Center for British Art, and the New York Public Library.
Currie was born in England to Scottish parents and grew up in Barrhead, near the city of Glasgow. He started studying at the Glasgow School of Art in 1978 and graduated in 1983. In the late 1980s he was gaining attention as part of the New Glasgow Boys, a group of young Scottish figurative painters, including among others the artists Peter Howson, Adrian Wiszniewski and Steven Campbell.
Throughout the 1980s, Currie's work depicted heroic workers and revolutionary union representatives as part of a bigger "socialist Clydeside". This is seen as a response to the policies of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Currie was involved with the Communist Party and describes his political views at the time as those of a "typical Scottish leftist".
In 1987 Currie finished an eight-piece series of large-scale paintings of the massacre of the Calton weavers of 1787, which was the violent suppression of a strike by the British Army, resulting in "Scotland's first working-class martyrs". The paintings, which were commissioned for the 200th anniversary of the massacre, are now hanging on the ceiling of the People's Palace in Glasgow.
Starting with the early 1990s, Currie began to be emotionally affected by the political and humanitarian crises in Eastern Europe, such as the Yugoslav Wars. He incorporated this in his art by depicting decaying and damaged bodies.
While many of his portraits are loosely based on his own face, Currie has completed portraits of notable people. His work Three Oncologists, completed in 2002, depicts three doctors working at the Ninewells Hospital in Dundee: Professor Robert J. C. Steele, Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri and Professor Sir David P. Lane. Commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, it is one of his most well-known paintings. In 2005 Currie was commissioned by the University of Edinburgh to paint a portrait of theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.
In 2011 Currie unveiled Immortality, a body of work consisting of paintings of the wealthy and famous. The title is an ironic nod at their inability to cheat death.
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Ken Currie
Ken Currie (born March 9, 1960, in North Shields, North Tyneside, England) is a Scottish artist known for figurative painting and portraits. In his early career in the 1980s, he was associated with the New Glasgow Boys group of artists. Currie was elected to the Royal Scottish Academy in 2024.
His work often deals with themes of class, illness, and decay. Currie says he wants his work to "hover in that area between beauty and horror". His work is in many major collections including the Tate, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Yale Center for British Art, and the New York Public Library.
Currie was born in England to Scottish parents and grew up in Barrhead, near the city of Glasgow. He started studying at the Glasgow School of Art in 1978 and graduated in 1983. In the late 1980s he was gaining attention as part of the New Glasgow Boys, a group of young Scottish figurative painters, including among others the artists Peter Howson, Adrian Wiszniewski and Steven Campbell.
Throughout the 1980s, Currie's work depicted heroic workers and revolutionary union representatives as part of a bigger "socialist Clydeside". This is seen as a response to the policies of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Currie was involved with the Communist Party and describes his political views at the time as those of a "typical Scottish leftist".
In 1987 Currie finished an eight-piece series of large-scale paintings of the massacre of the Calton weavers of 1787, which was the violent suppression of a strike by the British Army, resulting in "Scotland's first working-class martyrs". The paintings, which were commissioned for the 200th anniversary of the massacre, are now hanging on the ceiling of the People's Palace in Glasgow.
Starting with the early 1990s, Currie began to be emotionally affected by the political and humanitarian crises in Eastern Europe, such as the Yugoslav Wars. He incorporated this in his art by depicting decaying and damaged bodies.
While many of his portraits are loosely based on his own face, Currie has completed portraits of notable people. His work Three Oncologists, completed in 2002, depicts three doctors working at the Ninewells Hospital in Dundee: Professor Robert J. C. Steele, Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri and Professor Sir David P. Lane. Commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, it is one of his most well-known paintings. In 2005 Currie was commissioned by the University of Edinburgh to paint a portrait of theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.
In 2011 Currie unveiled Immortality, a body of work consisting of paintings of the wealthy and famous. The title is an ironic nod at their inability to cheat death.